The Hands of an E-Rank
Day two.
"Foot."
"…Pardon?"
"Right foot. Half a span forward."
Seorin shifted her foot.
Whoosh.
The wooden sword wobbled noticeably less.
"…Huh?"
"Done for today."
"Already?!"
Day three.
"Breathe."
"I am breathing."
"No, you're not. You hold your breath whenever you swing."
"…I do?"
"You do."
That day, for the first time in her life, Seorin completed a hundred swings without feeling dizzy.
Day four.
Seorin stood before Yuhan with her arms firmly crossed.
"Mister. Question."
"You wasting your daily remark on that?"
"No, I'm clarifying the rules. One question counts as one remark, right?"
Yuhan narrowed his eyes sleepily. "…Sure."
"Great." Seorin sucked in a massive breath. "Ever since yesterday, I've kept my foot half a span forward, but that throws my center of gravity forward, which makes me half a beat late when retreating. So when I step back, should I pull my foot back or just shift my center of gravity? And if I shift it, should the movement come from the knees or the pelvis? And—"
"Pelvis."
"……"
"Done for today."
Seorin's jaw dropped. "…Excuse me? That's it?"
"One answer for one question."
"I asked five questions!"
"Then I answered one of them."
"Which one?!"
"Pelvis."
Yuhan flopped back down onto the bench. Seorin stomped her foot in indignation.
"You're so petty!"
"Yep."
"Seriously petty!"
"Yep."
"……"
"……"
"…The pelvis?"
"Yep. Pelvis."
Day five.
"Don't look."
"…At what?"
"The sword."
Seorin faltered mid-motion. "How am I supposed to swing if I don't look at the sword?"
"The sword is your hand. Do you stare at your hands when you eat?"
That day, Seorin closed her eyes and swung a hundred times. Around the eightieth swing, something strange happened. Without seeing it, she knew precisely where the blade was.
Day six.
When Seorin arrived at the training ground, Yuhan was already lying on the bench. It was twenty to five in the morning.
"…You're early."
"Couldn't sleep."
"Liar."
"For real."
Seorin reached into her bag and pulled out a plastic convenience store bag containing two triangle gimbap.
"Here. Eat."
"Not hungry."
"Then I'll throw them in the trash."
"…Hand 'em over."
Day seven.
"Slowly."
"Shouldn't I be swinging faster?"
"Speed only comes after you've mastered doing it slow."
"…What?"
"Do it a hundred times slowly, and speed takes care of itself."
Day eight.
Yuhan didn't utter a single word.
An hour passed. Seorin stole a glance over her shoulder—he was fast asleep on the bench. Two hours passed, and he hadn't stirred. Seorin paused, lowering her wooden sword.
…Nothing today?
An odd pang of disappointment settled in her chest. He was a man who gave her only a single remark a day, but without that one remark, the entire morning felt hollow.
She raised her sword once more.
Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh.
Around her two-hundredth swing, a voice drifted from behind her.
"Good job today."
Seorin froze mid-swing and whipped around. Yuhan was still sprawled on the bench, an arm draped lazily over his eyes.
"…Mister."
"Yeah."
"Weren't you sleeping?"
"Yeah, I was."
"Then how—"
"I can tell by the sound." Yuhan didn't bother moving his arm. "The sound changed on your hundred and twelfth swing. You've been doing well since then."
"……"
"That's your remark for today."
Seorin stood rooted in place, clutching the wooden sword as a tight knot formed in her throat.
…Praise.
It had been three years since she last heard anything like it. No—perhaps it was the first time in her entire life.
"…Mister."
"Yeah."
"I'm not allowed to cry, right?"
"Right. Don't."
"……"
"If you've got time to cry, swing ten more times."
Seorin laughed softly through her tears, and while weeping, she swung ten more times.
Day ten.
Five in the morning.
Yuhan lay on the bench while Seorin stood dead center in the cavernous training ground. She raised her wooden sword—gripping with only two fingers, right foot half a span forward, exhaling smoothly, eyes looking past the blade. Slowly. Deliberately.
She swung.
Fwhoosh—
Yuhan's eyes snapped wide open. He threw his arm aside, hoisted his torso up, and planted his boots onto the concrete. Every movement was agonizingly slow.
…Just now.
Seorin was staring blankly down at her hands.
"…Huh?"
At the tip of the wooden sword, impossibly faint, a seam lingered in the air. The settled dust on the floor had been pushed aside in a razor-straight line.
"…Mister. What I just did—"
Seorin turned around and choked on her words. Yuhan wore an expression she had never seen before. He looked neither insolent, nor annoyed, nor drowsy. He wasn't looking at her face; his gaze was locked entirely onto her hands.
"…Hey."
"…Yes?"
"Open your hand."
"…Pardon?"
"Your palm. Open it."
Seorin flattened her palm. Yuhan reached out and grasped it. His hand was enormous, rough as weathered bark, every knuckle bearing ancient scars. With his thumb, he pressed dead center into her palm.
"Hurt?"
"…A little."
"Here?"
"…No, not there."
"Here?"
"…Ow!"
Yuhan stared silently at the spot for a long moment. Embedded in the dead center of her palm was a hard callus the size of a coin.
"…How long has this been here?"
"I don't know. It's always been there."
"Always?"
"Since I was about thirteen."
Yuhan released her hand and sank back onto the bench. He dragged both palms down his face with a heavy exhale.
"…Haah."
"Mister?"
"……"
"What is it? Is it a disease?"
"No."
"Then—"
"Gripping a sword doesn't cause a callus there." Yuhan held up his own open hand. Seorin leaned in to inspect it. The thick calluses on his hand were concentrated solely along the base of his fingers; the center of his palm was completely smooth. "…Huh?"
"You grip a blade with your fingers. The palm never makes contact."
"Then why do I have—"
"Because it didn't come from contact." Yuhan lifted his gaze. "It passed through."
Silence swallowed the basement, punctuated only by the low hum of the vending machine.
"…What do you mean?"
"How do hunters use mana?"
"…They inject it into their weapons."
"Right. That's the Earth method." Yuhan tapped the toe of his shoe against the concrete. "You draw mana from your core, force it through your limbs into the sword, and if the blade can endure the pressure, the strike becomes stronger. That's why everyone risks their lives to get better weapons."
"…Yes."
"Except you've never forced it in."
Seorin blinked in bewilderment. "…I haven't? But I've spent three years trying to push it—"
"And you couldn't."
"…Right."
"Not because you failed, but because your body refuses to do it that way." Yuhan looked up into her eyes. "Your constitution doesn't expel mana. It lets mana flow freely through you."
"……"
"The mana has been coursing straight through your palms. Every single day for three years. That's why your flesh ended up scarred like that."
Seorin stared down at her palm. A coin-sized knot of hardened skin. The spot that had ached relentlessly for three years. The spot doctors had waved off as nothing more than a stubborn callus.
"…Is that a good thing?"
Yuhan didn't answer.
"Mister."
"……"
"Is it bad?"
"…The evaluation device."
"Yes?"
"Do you know what the measuring orb actually calculates?"
Seorin paused, searching her memory. "…Total mana volume and manifestation output speed."
"And how does it calculate that?"
"…You place your hand on the sphere, expel your mana into it, and then—" Seorin's voice hitched. "…It only measures when you expel it."
"Right."
"And I don't expel it."
"Right."
"…Then what does that make me?"
Yuhan popped open a can of coffee. "It means the machine couldn't measure you. It doesn't mean you lack talent."
Seorin stood frozen, her wooden sword hanging limply at her side.
She had been twelve. When her initial assessment came back as E-rank, what had her uncle said?
— I knew it.
She had been fifteen. When she failed the academy's practical evaluation, what had the instructor said?
— She works hard, but she has no vessel.
She had been seventeen. What had her father said?
— Seorin. Let's call it quits.
"…Eight years." Her voice cracked like dry kindling. "For eight whole years…"
"……"
"I thought I was completely useless."
Yuhan set the canned coffee down. "Yeah."
"All this time… it was just a machine that failed to read me?"
"Yeah."
"That was all it was?"
"Yeah."
Seorin let out a laugh. She laughed, but her face crumbled into an agonizing mess of tears.
"…Wow."
"……"
"That is so completely absurd."
Dropping the wooden sword to the floor, she collapsed right where she stood, burying her face in her knees. She remained curled up for a long time, and Yuhan said nothing.
A long time ago. A royal kitchen in Arshena. A young girl peeling potatoes had brandished a chipped kitchen knife and asked him, 'Can someone like me learn the sword too?'
He had taken that girl's hand. Embedded in the dead center of her palm had been a coin-sized callus.
Back then, he had smiled brightly and told her: 'You're the kind of genius born once a century.'
…And she had died at nineteen.
"Mister."
Yuhan blinked away the memory. Seorin was looking up at him from the floor.
"What do I do now?"
Without answering, Yuhan stood up and strolled toward the overgrown planter against the wall.
Snap.
A tree branch broke off—thirty centimeters long, no thicker than a pinky finger. He turned and thrust it toward Seorin.
"…What's this?"
"Grip it."
"…What about the wooden sword?"
"Leave it."
Seorin took the twig. It felt feather-light in her grasp, fragile as paper.
"What am I supposed to do with this?"
"Swing."
"It'll snap."
"Yeah. It will." Yuhan reclaimed his spot on the bench. "Keep swinging until it breaks."
"…Why?"
"Once you understand why it breaks, you'll know how to stop it from breaking."
Seorin raised the frail twig. Gripping with two fingers. Right foot half a span forward. Exhaling. Not looking. Slowly. She swung.
Snap.
The branch cleaved clean in two.
"…It broke."
"Yep."
"What now?"
"Break off another one."
Seorin snapped a fresh branch from the planter and swung. Snap. She broke another off and swung. Snap.
On her twelfth attempt.
Fwhoosh—
It didn't break.
Seorin froze. The twig in her palm remained entirely whole, a single green leaf at its tip quivering against the displaced air.
"…Huh?" She whipped around, her eyes wide. "Mister! It didn't brea—"
Her voice cut off.
Yuhan was standing right before her. He had risen from the bench and closed the distance without making a whisper of sound. Seorin looked up into his scarred face.
For the first time, she saw him smile.
It wasn't his usual lazy, insolent smirk.
"…Mister?"
Yuhan looked down at the twig in her hand for a long, quiet moment before speaking.
"Starting tomorrow."
"…Yes?"
"Not one remark. Two."
Two weeks passed.
By now, Seorin's twigs rarely broke. Breaking twelve a day had plummeted to three, then to one, and yesterday, not a single branch had snapped.
Fwhoosh—
The clean crack of parted air echoed off the concrete walls.
"Foot."
"Yes."
"Lower your chin."
"Yes."
Sprawled across the bench, Yuhan held up two fingers. "Two remarks done."
"Mister, that's cheating! How does 'Foot' count as an entire remark?"
"It counts."
"That's just a single word!"
"A word is a remark."
"Then yesterday when you said 'Shoulders' and 'Breathe'—"
"Yep, two remarks."
Seorin stabbed the air with her branch in frustration. "You're seriously petty."
"Yep."
CLANG.
The heavy reinforced iron door swung wide open.
Seorin's hand halted mid-thrust. Three men stepped into the basement. The man leading them appeared to be around twenty-eight, dressed in a tailored wool coat and polished leather dress shoes. The rhythmic, arrogant clatter of his heels rang sharply across the floor. The two men trailing behind him wore jackets emblazoned with a prominent guild crest.
"…I knew you'd be here."
Seorin's face hardened instantly. "…Oppa."
Cha Minhyeok. The eldest direct grandson of the Cha Clan, a B-rank hunter. He had attained B-rank at the tender age of twenty-five and was already serving as a deputy raid leader in the clan's corporate guild.
"Answer your phone for once, will you?"
"…I haven't checked it."
"You mean you saw it ringing and chose to ignore it." Minhyeok cast a disdainful look around the dilapidated facility: spiderwebbed mirrors, flickering fluorescent tubes, and rusted yellow safety fences. "…Wow. You really are still scraping by down here."
He let out an amused scoff.
"What has it been, three years?"
"……"
"Three years wasting away alone on Basement 3."
"…Yes."
"So, made any actual progress?"
Seorin offered no reply. Minhyeok's eyes drifted down to her right hand.
"…What is that?"
"……"
"Cha Seorin. Is that a tree branch?"
The two guild lackeys behind him snickered, attempting to stifle their chuckles only to let out loud snorts. Minhyeok didn't laugh at all, which made his disdain cut far deeper.
"I'll cut straight to the point." He drew an official envelope from his coat pocket. "The clan is cutting off all funding for your academy retakes after this month."
Seorin's posture went rigid. "…What did you say?"
"It's Uncle's decision. Three years of indulgence was more than generous."
"……"
"Instead, I pulled some strings and carved out a desk for you in the group's general affairs division. Report to the corporate office next month." Minhyeok extended the envelope toward her. "Surrender your hunter license. An E-rank can't even legally enter dungeon perimeters anyway."
A suffocating silence descended upon the subterranean hall. Seorin kept her eyes firmly averted from the envelope.
"…I'm not quitting."
"Seorin."
"I've genuinely improved. Lately—"
"Improved how?" Minhyeok's tone turned chillingly level. "Did your rank advance?"
"…Not yet."
"Did your mana capacity expand?"
"…The evaluation orb couldn't—"
"Couldn't what?"
Seorin clamped her mouth shut.
The machine couldn't measure me.
It's not that I lack talent; the device simply can't calculate my mana conduit constitution.
The explanation surged up her throat, only to die on her tongue.
…I can't prove it.
Her E-rank classification was sealed in ink and stored across eight years of bureau registry servers. All she possessed in the present moment was a brittle tree branch and the terse daily advice of an unemployed bum.
Minhyeok let out a tired sigh.
"Seorin."
"……"
"I'm not doing this out of spite." He set the envelope down on a nearby bench. "I've watched you since you were twelve. You trained harder than anyone else in the clan. I genuinely acknowledge your effort."
"……"
"But in this world, hard work alone doesn't change reality." Minhyeok's gaze fixed on the branch in her hand. "…Just how long do you intend to cling to that stick?"
Seorin's fingers trembled around the wood.
Right then—
"Oi."
Minhyeok turned his head.
Over on a dusty bench in the shadowed corner of the training ground, someone was sprawled out. Only now did Minhyeok realize a stranger had been there all along—a man in faded gray sweatpants, an arm thrown carelessly over his face.
"…What's with him?"
One of the guild members quickly tapped on his tablet to access the facility logs.
"Entry log indicates… Seo Yuhan. Returnee R-2847. Rank: F."
"Rank F?"
"Yes, sir. He's an F-rank."
For the first time, Minhyeok's polished demeanor broke into sheer, unadulterated disbelief.
"…Seorin."
"……"
"Don't tell me you've been taking pointers from that guy?"
"……"
"From an F-rank?"
Seorin said nothing.
Minhyeok let out a sharp bark of laughter—this time entirely genuine in its mockery.
"…Ha. Incredible." He pressed a palm against his forehead. "Hey. Mister."
Yuhan didn't twitch.
"Mister. You asleep?"
"……"
"What could an F-rank bum possibly teach an awakened hunter? There's a limit to how brazen a con artist can be."
"……"
"Did she pay you? How much did you swindle out of her?"
Seorin snapped, her voice ringing out through the chamber: "He never took a single won from me!"
"Then that makes it even shadier." Minhyeok turned back to her. "Who offers private training for free? He's obviously angling for something else."
"He isn't that kind of person!"
"What do you know about him?"
"I know enough!" Seorin tightened her white-knuckled grip on the branch. "…For three weeks, that man gave me one remark every single day."
"……"
"Just one remark a day. But with every single word, he showed me things I couldn't figure out in three years of academy instruction." Her voice shook with suppressed fury. "You never offered me a single piece of advice, Oppa. Not once."
Minhyeok's expression hardened into stone.
"…Cha Seorin."
"……"
"It wasn't that I held back." He took a menacing step forward. "There was simply nothing worth teaching you."
The color drained completely from Seorin's face.
And then—
Creak.
The bench groaned under shifting weight.
Minhyeok glanced over. The man was sitting up—languidly, begrudgingly, as if the mere act of drawing breath were an unbearable chore. He lowered his feet to the floor and cracked his neck from side to side.
Crack. Crack.
Then, letting out an enormous yawn, he drawled in an outrageously insolent tone:
"Hey. You."
"…What?"
"Your knee hurts like hell, doesn't it?"
In an instant, every trace of amusement vanished from Minhyeok's face.